were in the world, Christ loved them unto the end, loved them still
upon his cross, and ceased not to love them when he left them and
returned to the Father, but remembered his promise to pray for them,
and to send them another Comforter who should abide with them forever,
and finally to come again and receive them unto himself, that where he
is they might be also. Nearly nineteen centuries are past since he
ascended whence he came, and still the promise holds good, and the
lapse of ages has not diminished his affection, and to-day he loves his
friends as tenderly as when he talked so sweetly with the little flock
at the Last Supper and along the path to Olivet. Death, which dissolves
all other friendships, confirms this forever. "I have a desire to
depart," wrote the heroic Christian prisoner from Rome--"I have a
desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better." Not long
had the dear old man to wait. One morning--the 29th of June, A.D.
68--the door of his dungeon opened, St. Paul went forth, walked a mile
along the way to Ostia, with his hands bound behind him knelt down, the
sweep of a sword gleamed over him like the flash of an angel's wing,
and the servant was with his Lord!
Thus, dear brethren, we see the incomparable qualities of our Beloved,
the divine excellences of our Friend. Perfect wisdom is here, perfect
knowledge, perfect prudence, perfect justice, perfect purity, perfect
benevolence, perfect magnanimity, with immutability and
immortality--whatever is necessary to win and hold the heart--all
blending in the character of Christ. Is he not the very friend we need?
How, without him, can we bear to live or dare to die? What are riches,
culture, power, splendor, without his love? What can our poor human
friends do for us in the hour of death? What could worlds of such
friends do for us in the day of judgment? "In the name of the Lord is
strong confidence, and his children shall have a place of refuge." Flee
away, ye heavens! Dissolve, thou earth! and vanish! It is my Beloved
that cometh with his chariots! It is my Friend that sitteth upon the
throne!
Oh! my brethren! Christ Jesus loves to make new friends, though he
never abandons the old. Let us accept his gracious overtures, and join
ourselves unto the Lord in an everlasting covenant. The poorest and
vilest of us all would he take home to his heart, and love him freely
and forever. The most unworthy of all the human race would he gladly
introduce to the fellowship of saints and the innumerable company of
angels, and seat the pardoned sinner at his side upon the throne. Oh!
when I enter the metropolis, and hail the immortal millions of the
blood-washed, and kneel to kiss the nail-pierced feet of the King,
while all the harps and voices that have welcomed me go silent for his
gracious salutation, with what rapture, as I rise, shall I look round
upon the happy multitude and say--"This is my beloved, and this is my
friend, O daughters of Jerusalem!"
[1] Preached at a wedding festival, 1833.
[2] Gal. iii. 27.
IV.
REFUGE IN GOD.[1]
Be thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save
me.--Ps. xxxi. 2.
On a superb arch in one of the halls of the Alhambra, the traveller
reads as he enters: "I seek my refuge in the Lord of the morning." The
sentiment is worthy of Holy Scripture, whence doubtless it was taken by
the writer of the Koran. More than two thousand years earlier than
Mohammed, Moses had said to the beloved tribes, just before he ascended
to his mountain death-bed: "The eternal God is thy refuge, and
underneath thee are the everlasting arms." And how often does King
David, environed with dangers and oppressed with sorrows, comfort
himself with the assurance of an almighty protection and support! "Thou
art my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in
whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my
high tower." "In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion;
in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up
upon a rock; and now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies that
are round about me." "Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong
tower from the enemy; I will abide in thy tabernacle forever, I will
trust in the covert of thy wings." "Thou art my hiding-place: thou wilt
preserve me from trouble; thou wilt compass me about with songs of
deliverance." And so in a hundred other passages of his psalms, and
notably in the words we have chosen as the basis of this discourse: "Be
thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me." In all such
utterances, there seems to be some reference to the Hebrew cities of
refuge, whither the manslayer fled from the avenger of blood, where he
remained unmolested till he could have an impartial hearing, and
whence, if found innocent of premeditated murder, he finally came forth
acquitted amidst the congratulations of his family and friends. Here is
the double idea of escape from persecution and security from
punishment; and with reference to both these, the psalmist seeks his
refuge in the Lord of the morning.
The first idea is refuge from persecution. David's persecutions were
varied, and violent, and long continued. How sadly he tells the story,
and pours out his melting soul in song! Deceitful and bloody men, full
of all subtlety and malignity, compassed him about like bees, like
strong bulls of Bashan, like a troop of lions from the desert. Daily
they imagined mischief against him, and consulted together to cast him
down from his excellency. They laid to his charge things which he knew
not. To the spoiling of his soul, they rewarded him evil for good. With
hypocritical mockers in feasts, they gnashed upon him with their teeth.
As with a sword in his bones, they reproached him; saying continually,
"Where is now thy God?" In his adversity they openly rejoiced, and with
his misfortunes made themselves merry. They persecuted him whom God had
smitten, and talked to the grief of him whom the Most High had wounded.
With cruel hatred they hated him; yea, they tore him in pieces, and
ceased not.
With these woful complaints agree the recorded facts of his life. One
while we see him pursued like a partridge upon the mountains by the
royal army, with his royal father-in-law at its head; from whom he
escapes only by frequent flight, concealment in caverns, and weary
sojourn at the court of a pagan king. And later in life we behold him
driven from his throne, and chased from house and hold, by his own
insurgent son; while Shimmei comes forth to curse the weeping fugitive,
and cast stones at the Lord's anointed; and Ahithophel, his former
familiar friend and courtly _confidant_, with whom he has often
taken sweet counsel and walked in the house of God, lifts up the heel
against him, and basely goes over to the standard of the conspirators.
No wonder he exclaims, as with the sigh of a breaking heart: "Save me,
O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire,
where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters, where the
floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying; my throat is dried; mine
eyes fail, while I wait for my God. They that hate me without cause are
more than the hairs of my head; they that would destroy me, being mine
enemies wrongfully, are mighty.... Thou hast known my reproach, and my
shame, and my dishonor. Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of
heaviness. And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and
for comforters, but I found none."[2] "I mourn in my complaint and make
a noise, because of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked;
for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me. My heart is
sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me;
fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed
me. Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I flee away, and be
at rest; lo! then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness;
I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest."[3]
Vain wish, O disquieted and trembling soul! No wings, no distance, no
solitude, can save thee. Nearer at hand thou shalt find thy refuge,
even in the Lord of the morning. And well knows the persecuted king
where to look for succor and consolation. "O Lord, my God! in thee do I
put my trust. Save me from them that persecute me, and deliver me; lest
he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none
to deliver."[4] "Show thy marvellous loving-kindness, O thou that
savest by thy right hand them that put their trust in thee from those
who rise up against them! Keep me as the apple of thine eye, hide me
under the shadow of thy wing, from the wicked that oppress me, from my
deadly enemies who compass me about."[5] "Plead my cause, O Lord! with
them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me.
Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for my help; draw out
also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say
unto my soul, I am thy salvation."[6]
How expressive is all this of utter helplessness, and reliance upon the
living God! What fervent prayer is here! what faith in a personal power
and a special providence which no human agency can baffle or resist!
Proud mortals! talk no more of the strong will, the valiant arm, the
dauntless courage, and your own self-sufficiency! "Cursed is the man
that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm." "Trust ye in the Lord
forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." What is the
strategy of generals and the prowess of armies, to him "who rideth upon
the heavens in thy help, and in his excellency on the sky"? Faith as a
grain of mustard-seed is better than all your military science, and the
prayer of the humblest peasant is mightier than embattled millions. The
prayer of faith divides the sea, cleaves the granite, marshals the
troops of the tempest, and makes the angels of God our allies. "When I
call upon thee, then shall mine enemies be put to flight; this I know,
for God is on my side." Such is David's confidence; such, my brethren,
be ours! Is not every attribute of Jehovah in league with the devout
believer, and all his infinite resources pledged to the support of his
servants? And without any doubt of a divine hearing or fear of ultimate
failure, every persecuted Christian may pray to the God of David: "Be
thou my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me."
The second idea is refuge from punishment. The chief element of David's
distress is a painful consciousness of guilt. It is conscience that
wrings the wormwood for him into every cup of sorrow. It is remorse for
past transgression that turns his tears into gall and makes his
persecutions intolerable. Pure and innocent, he might defy his enemies,
he might glory in tribulations. But he is forced to regard the wicked
as God's sword for the punishment of his sins; and in all his pleadings
we hear the voice of the penitent--sad confessions, bitter
self-reproaches, touching appeals to the mercy of Heaven. "Lord, what
wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me from my transgressions; make
me not a reproach of the foolish.... Remove thy stroke away from me; I
am consumed by the blow of thy hand."[7] "Deliver me out of the mire,
and let me not sink. Let not the water-flood overflow me, neither let
the deep swallow me up. Hear me, O Lord! for thy loving-kindness is
good. Turn unto me, according to the multitude of thy tender mercies;
and hide not thy face from thy servant, for I am in trouble. Hear me
speedily."[8]
A good man, we all know, may be surprised by temptation, and so fall
into grievous sin. Thus some of God's holiest servants have committed
enormous crimes. Not the single or occasional act, however, constitutes
character; but the habit of a man's life--his dominant impulse and
prevailing tendency. To judge St. Peter, for example, by the one
solitary instance of defection, were manifestly unfair; when his whole
course, up to that moment, and ever afterward, was marked by
uncompromising fidelity to the Master, with the most heroic daring and
enduring in his service. Far more just were it to estimate the man by
the tears which he wept when the reproving glance brought home the
guilt to his conscience, and by his subsequent earnest endeavors to
undo the evil he had done and honor the Saviour he had denied.
Apply this principle to the royal penitent. Who ever more truly loved
God, or more honestly sought to serve him? Was not holy obedience the
tenor and tendency of his life? If he erred in numbering the people--if
he took Uriah's wife to his bosom, and slew the husband to conceal the
crime--it was under the power of peculiar temptation, which we, having
never experienced, are quite incapable of estimating; and those
deplorable deeds are the only recorded exceptions--the manifest violent
contradictions--to a long life of singular piety, purity and
uprightness. And now, made sensible of his sin, mark you how bitterly
he grieves for it, and how earnestly he groans for its forgiveness:--
"Have mercy upon me, O God! according to thy loving-kindness; according
to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For
I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against
thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight; that
thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou
judgest.... Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I
shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the
bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins,
and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God!
and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence,
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation, and uphold me with thy free Spirit. Then will I teach
transgressors thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.
Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God! thou God of my salvation! and
my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness."[9]
What keen remorse and penitential shame are here! Was there ever a more
ingenuous confession, a more thorough contrition, a more profound
humility, or a more utter self-despair? The royal sinner seems to see
the sin in all its hideousness, and to hate it with unutterable hatred.
He seeks no subterfuge, attempts no extenuation; but charges the guilt
home, with all its aggravations, upon his own soul. Never can he
forgive his folly, nor weep tears, enough to express his sorrow for the
fault.
Would to Heaven we might all thus feel our guilt, and haste to the
shelter of the divine mercy! Sinners--great sinners--are we all. Is
there one of us that has not sinned more deeply than David ever did?
And, instead of being an exceptional act, our sin has been the habit of
our lives. Justice, with double-flaming sword, is hard upon our heels.
What shall we do, or whither turn, for safety? To thee, O Crucified
Love! we come; and, with broken hearts, cast ourselves down at thy
feet. All other saviours we renounce: all other merits we disclaim; all
other sacrifices we abjure. Thou of God art made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. Perishing, we implore
thy mercy. Take us to the arms that were stretched upon the cross. Hide
us in the heart that was opened by the soldier's spear. When we faint
in the valley of the shadow of death, let us feel the assuring pressure
of the nail-pierced hand. When the heavens are flaming above and the
earth is dissolving beneath, "be thou our strong rock, for a house of
defence to save us"!
[1] Preached in Ithaca, N.Y., 1838.
[2] Ps. lxix. 1-4, 19, 20.
[3] Ps. lv. 2-8.
[4] Ps. vii. 1, 2.
[5] xvii. 7, 8.
[6] xxxv. 1-3.
[7] Ps. xxxvii, 7, 8, 10.
[8] Ps. lxix. 14-17.
[9] Ps. li. 1-4, 7-14.
V.
PARENTAL DISCIPLINE.[1]
His sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not.--1
Sam. iii. 13.
Few things in the Bible are more beautiful than the child-life of
Samuel. A gift of the loving God to a devout but sorrowful woman, his
mother gladly gave him back to the Giver, and he ministered before the
Lord in the sanctuary at Shiloh. At that time Eli was both high-priest
and magistrate in Israel. As a man of God, and to him much more than a
father, Samuel seems to have loved him very tenderly and honored him
very highly. To ease himself somewhat of his onerous duties, perhaps,
Eli had raised his two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, to the dignity of the
priesthood. In the exercise of their sacred trust, the young men had
committed great excesses and abuses. From all sides the fact came to
the ears of their father. Sweetly and gently he remonstrated with the
offenders, but neglected to hold them back with the strong hand of
parental authority. Probably from the first there had been some radical
defect in the moral discipline of the family. An amiable and indulgent
father, Eli had neglected the severer duty which his sacred office,
even more than his paternal relation, imposed upon him. To make him
sensible of his great delinquency, the guilt of his sons must be
brought home upon his hoary head.
"Divinely called and strongly moved,
A prophet from a child approved,"
Samuel is commissioned to announce to him the heavy tidings, that God
will judge his house forever, because "his sons made themselves vile,
and he restrained them not."
In the outset, we cannot help observing the difference between the sons
of Eli and his little ward. Samuel received his first lessons from the
lips of a godly mother in the quiet home at Ramah. From his earliest
consciousness he knew that he was to be a Nazarite, consecrated wholly
to the service of Jehovah. His special training afterward in the house
of the Lord was well adapted to fit him for the grand career before
him. The gross misconduct of some who ought to have set him the best
example must have wounded deeply his innocent heart, while it impressed
him strongly with the deadly evil of sin and the mischief resulting
inevitably from the relaxation of morals among the rulers of the people
and the ministers of religion. Growing up in daily contact with the
mysteries and symbols of the divine service, the sacred ritual which
was to Hophni and Phinehas merely an empty form was to him replete with
the spirit and power of holiness, elevating his thoughts, purifying his
feelings, and moulding his whole character to its noble design. The
names and things with which he was constantly occupied conformed him
gradually but unalterably to God's gracious purpose, and made him the
steadfast and uncompromising servant of the Most High--the man to
reprove, rebuke, exhort, instruct the people--to retrieve losses,
restore justice, reform abuses, assuage excitements, reduce chaos to
order, establish the schools of the prophets, and wield a controlling
power over the throne. Such a ministry required a character of steady
growth, and the personal influence of a consistent and holy life. None
of your modern revivals could ever have made a Samuel.
True it is, indeed, that some of God's most eminent servants--as St.
Paul and St. Augustine--were converted in manhood, after a wasted youth
of sin and crime; yet such instances are no real exceptions to the
rule, that God directs the training of his servants from childhood,
shaping his instruments by every act of his providence. St. Paul was
thoroughly educated in the rabbinical learning of his day, and well
acquainted with Greek literature and Greek philosophy, and so far
prepared for his Christian apostleship to both Jews and Gentiles; and
the logical and rhetorical studies of St. Augustine unconsciously made
him the great Christian dialectician that he was, while the sensual
indulgences of his earlier years intensified his knowledge both of the
power of sin and the efficacy of divine grace which he was to preach to
others. Generally, the Lord's most honored servants, like Samuel, have
been chosen from their childhood, and nourished up for their special
ministry under the hallowed influence of his truth and worship. Some of
them, it is true, were afterward for a while occupied in other
callings, before they went to their divinely appointed labor. Moses was
a shepherd in the very wilderness through which he was to lead the
Lord's beloved, and on the very mountain where he was to receive for
them a law from the lips of God. David also was a shepherd, and a
musician, and a warrior, and a fugitive, and an outcast from his
country; and by all these conditions and experiences was he trained for
his future pre-eminence, as the king of Israel, and the psalmist of the
sanctuary, and the man after God's own heart. And Chrysostom was a
lawyer, and Ambrose was a civilian and a prefect, and Cyprian was a
professor of rhetoric, before they entered upon their nobler life-work
for Christ and the Church. In all these cases, to which many others
might be added, God's good providence wisely ordered the discipline of
his servants, through knowledge, and sorrow, and conflict, and a great
variety of experiences, out of which were developed those characters
and qualities which were essential to their success in the high calling
for which they were designed. And so with the holy Baptist, chosen to
be the immediate harbinger of the Messiah; and the Galilaean fishermen,
whom he afterward ordained as his apostles; and Timothy, appointed the
first bishop of Ephesus; and Luther, the destined sword of Heaven to
Papal Rome. And so it was with Samuel, from his very birth consecrated
to God, growing up in the house of the Lord, becoming the prophet and
judge of his people, the invincible champion of truth and
righteousness; with such heroic energy maintaining the authority of the
divine law, rebuking iniquity in high places, withstanding the current
of the national degeneracy, and like an angel of God pronouncing the
doom of a fallen monarch, that "all Israel even from Dan to Beersheba
knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord."
To return to Eli and his sons. The father's fault seems to have been
too much indulgence, too much tenderness, perhaps too much timidity, to
restrain his consecrated lads from their wicked practices. The power he
had, but would not assert it. The father's authority in his family at
that age of the world was absolute and unquestionable. This fact leaves
Eli's conduct without excuse. He remonstrated with the offenders, but
far too feebly. Their crimes were of the very worst character, and
aggravated by their sacred profession and holy environments; yet he had
for them but a few soft and gentle words, scarcely strong enough to be
called a reproof, without any assertion of authority as father,
high-priest, or judge. One of our best biblical critics renders the
text: "His sons made themselves accursed, and he frowned not upon them."
But while we animadvert upon the guilty negligence of Eli, let no
parent plead the different customs of our day, the higher civilization
of the race, or the diminished degree of parental authority, as an
excuse for his own delinquency. Every father and mother are responsible
for the moral restraint of the children that God has given them, and
fearful beyond all estimate must be the consequences of disregarding
the duty. Such is the tendency of human nature to evil, that it begins
to show itself ordinarily at a very early period of life, and the
utmost care should be taken to check it in its first manifestations.
For this purpose it may be necessary to interpose the strength of the
parental will in curbing the will of the child. Those who are taught
from their infancy to submit their own will to the will of father or
mother are more likely in later life to yield themselves to the will of
God. The wise mother of the Wesleys has left on record these words for
our guidance in this important matter: "In order to form the mind of
the child, the first thing to be done is to conquer the will and bring
it into an obedient temper. This is the only strong and rational
foundation of a religious education, without which both precept and
example will be ineffectual. As self-will is the root of all sin and
misery, so whatever cherishes this in children insures their after
wretchedness and irreligion, and whatever checks and mortifies it
promotes their future happiness and piety." Who will presume to
question this statement? And if correct, is not Robert Hall's remark
equally true--that "indulgent parents are cruel to their children and
to posterity"?